Boiler House At Coalmont, 1908. A coal mine was a dangerous place to work, both above and under the ground.

In the fall of 1908, Fred Orr and January Goodiron, whose job it was to keep the fire going in the boilers, were killed instantly when the boilers burst with what news reports called a “tremendous detonation.”

Goodiron was decapitated and one of the company owners was injured, but not fatally so, by a flying brick.

Debris in the foreground of the photograph remains from the explosion.